Mitt Romney has surely seen a lot during his long political career, in campaigns for the presidency, as well as governor and the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.
I’d be willing to bet that Wednesday will be the first time he’ll have to share a stage with an opponent who is an Abraham Lincoln impersonator.
Welcome, Mitt, to the bizarre spectacle that is the Utah Republican state convention.
Romney comes into Saturday’s convention with nothing to gain — he already gathered enough signatures to be assured a spot on the Republican primary ballot. But there is some risk, specifically that, while polls show broad support for Romney’s Senate campaign, the notoriously prickly delegates didn’t seem to get the memo that they are supposed to swoon over his perfectly coiffed hair and malleable position on the issues.
Rod Arquette has heard some of that delegate discontent.
Arquette hosts a conservative talk show daily on KNRS and has been opening his phone lines to callers — some of them delegates, some not — to share their take on Utah’s U.S. Senate candidates.
“It’s a mixed bag,” he said of what he’s hearing about Romney. “Listeners raise the same questions: Romney and Romneycare, his attack on President Trump during the campaign, the carpetbagger [issue].”
At the same time, Arquette said, he was at the Davis County Republican Convention recently and when Romney arrived, it was like there was a gravitational pull toward him. But will that be enough to capture 60 percent of the delegates and avoid a primary?
“I think that is the most interesting issue, and I can’t say yea or nay, to be real honest,” Arquette said.
Insiders I’ve talked to about Romney’s prospects predict he could finish anywhere from second place to just above that magical 60 percent threshold.
The Romney frustration is also reflected in a private Facebook group that consists of nearly 700 state delegates. In numerous posts on the page (which were shared with me by a delegate), Romney is routinely attacked.
He’s weak on gun rights, he’s aloof and won’t answer questions, he won’t stand up for the Constitution — while right-wing candidates like attorney Larry Meyers, state Rep. Michael Kennedy, and dark horse pro-Trump candidate Sam Parker garner praise.
In several online polls, Romney finishes a very distant fourth, behind all three.
Obviously, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt. It is the fringe of the fringe venting in a secluded echo chamber, and online polls are nowhere near scientific.
But it points to an anti-Romney undercurrent among the conservative flank of the GOP, the same type of discontent we’ve seen again and again.
It goes back to 2000, when then-Gov. Mike Leavitt was forced into a primary with a completely unknown candidate. More recently, Gov. Gary Herbert had sky-high approval ratings heading into the 2016 convention and finished behind businessman Jonathan Johnson; then last year, former state Rep. Chris Herrod breezed to a win in the convention to replace U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, only to be trounced by then-Provo Mayor John Curtis in the primary.
There are other obstacles for Team Romney, as well. As has long been the case, the Senate candidates speak and are voted on later in the convention, an event that could last all day, testing the stamina and sanity of anyone who sticks it out.
The strident conservatives who dislike Romney will stay, but will the more mainstream delegates who aren’t invested in the arcane bickering that will gobble up time before the Senate candidates take the stage?
Romney’s campaign manager approached state party chairman Rob Anderson, asking to bump the Senate speeches to the front of the program, before the congressional candidate speeches, but was rebuffed.
We also have to remember that a significant portion of the delegates are deeply invested in the convention process and really, really dislike the Count My Vote initiative that gave us the signature path to the ballot.
And Romney? In 2014, he sent an email to Count My Vote organizers supporting the initiative and saying he has been “pushing hard” for states to move to direct primaries.
“Convention/caucus systems exclude so many people,” he and his wife, Ann, wrote. “They rarely produce a result that reflects how rank and file Republicans feel.”
Earlier this month, a delegate named Aaron Bullen confronted Romney about his position, and Romney tried to finesse it, saying he supported the signature path in addition to the convention system. Problem was, at the time he endorsed Count My Vote, the initiative would have done away with conventions — the dual track came later, in the Senate Bill 54 compromise.
There is a larger issue to watch Saturday as well; that is whether the hard-right delegates will destroy the last shreds of legitimacy that the convention system has.
From a practical standpoint, it probably doesn’t matter whether Romney gets 60 percent. With his money and his name recognition, Mighty Mitt is practically a lock to win a primary fight, if he has to. But a poor showing Saturday could knock some of the luster off the Golden Boy and push the convention system even further toward irrelevance.
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